Chris Smalls appeared in the U.S. Senate Thursday in Washington, DC, wearing a Yankees cap and jacket with “Eat the Rich” written on the back. His subsequent testimony remained faithful to the Senate Budget Committee.
Chairman of the Committee, sen. Speaking as an invited witness by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), The head of the Amazon Labor Union described the world’s largest online retailer as a union supporter and explained to senators in detail what workers were facing at the time. of the campaign. trade union.
Smalls began his testimony by targeting Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), a committee-ranked Republican. In his opening remarks, Graham said the hearing from Sanders unfairly rated Amazon as a “stupid company.” He warned against implementing Sanders ’proposal by banning companies that violate labor law from accepting federal contracts.
“First of all, I want to talk to Mr. Graham,” Smalls said. “You seem to have talked about a lot of companies and firms in your speech, but you have forgotten that people are the people who force these companies to operate.”
Smalls continued: “I think it is in your best interest to understand that it is not right or left… it is the business of the worker. This is a question for the worker. And we are suffering from the multinationals you say ”.
Smalls and its organizers in Staten Island, New York recently made national headlines when they won a historic union election at the Amazon JFK8 Performance Center and created the first United Amazon facility in the United States.
“Companies are in control. They break the law, run away. They already know.”
– Chris Smalls, President of Amazon Union
At Sanders ’invitation, Smalls gave a four-minute speech explaining how difficult it is to win this organizational campaign. He accused Amazon of repeatedly breaking the law while trying to syndicate. A National Labor Relations Council adviser found credit for some of Amazon Labor Union’s allegations against the company.
“Businesses are in control,” Smalls said. “They are breaking the law, they are moving away. They already know. “They know that violations of the law during the electoral campaign cannot be solved during the electoral campaign”.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As previously reported by HuffPost, the company spent approximately $ 4.3 million on anti-union consultants last year, according to information materials. Consultants and managers held group meetings and face-to-face talks with workers and encouraged them to vote against the union.
“They are about to enter the facility. “I separate the workers every day,” Smalls said. “They read, they almost turn, they act like they’re working to improve conditions, but in reality they’re just conducting a survey to find out who’s pro-union and who’s not.” They return this information to management. They have a captive audience every day. “
Smalls told senators who thought you were a new hire at Amazon: “The next day you don’t know your job assignment, and the first thing they’ll do is take you to some kind of propaganda against in the union. “
Smalls called on senators to pass the Organizational Rights Act, a broad proposal to change labor law to make it easier for workers to form unions. The bill was passed by a Democrat -controlled chamber but did not garner enough support in the Senate, which faced opposition from Republicans and some Democratic centers.
Team president Sean O’Brien also testified before the budget committee on Thursday. He argued that a company like Amazon should not accept federal contracts, citing that retailers illegally interfered in labor elections in Alabama last year. Representatives of the Labor Council ordered that the election be held.
“We have the ability to completely prevent companies that violate labor law from getting federal contracts. Why don’t we do that?” O’Brien asked. “We already know that Amazon is generally breaking the law.”
Source: Huffpost
